A scandal in Bosnian photography community

[milosh]

A scandal hit Bosnian photo community when it was discovered that a photographer Husein Sljivo stole photos from other people and submitted them as his to a lot of international photo contests and won many prizes.

He's a well-recognized and talented photographer who has already won many awards on international photo contests (with his own photos), a member of Photographic Association of Bosnia and Herzegovina, founder of a local association of artists, and a school teacher.

He used photos of wildlife of mainly German photographers. He downloaded them from internet and didn't even care that much to hide his act with processing.

A disciplinary procedure has been started against him which could cost him his earned titles, loss of membership in several photo associations and loss of right to take part in new contests.

Here's a pdf with the decision from Photo Association of Serbia including examples and proof of stealing:
http://www.fotoss.org/vesti/odlukahuseinsljivo.pdf

[SwissJon]

Oooohh.. Sounds rather like someone has some serious s**t coming their way!

[NgaiHill]

Sorry, couldn't read it, wasn't in English. But the photographs were beautiful. Why would someone with that much experience, talent (for his own shots anyway) and with so much to lose, do something that stupid?
I can almost see why some small-just-getting-started wedding photographer would steal someone else's photos for their own website/portfolio.
But to steal other photographers work and enter it in competitions? Did he not think he would get caught? That putting the photos out there to be judged that someone (the owner) wouldn't recognise them?? Stupid, stupid, stupid.

[milosh]

Yeah, I totally agree. I have no idea what he was thinking. It's not like he just got into photography and he doesn't know anything about copyright.

Interesting bit is that the fraud was not discovered by the original photographers, but by a wildlife preservation organization which was behind one of the contests ("his" photo won the first prize on that contest which was then taken away from him). The wildlife organization then contacted Photo Assoc. of Serbia and they started to investigate. He should consider himself very lucky if he doesn't face any sues by the owners! I wonder if anyone told them about all of this.